CHARLIE KIRK ON CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Critical Race Theory

Charlie Kirk’s organisation, which he co-founded, Turning Point USA, was well known for being deeply opposed to Critical Race Theory (CRT). This is one of the biggest false teachings facing Christians today, which Kirk and his crew have addressed head-on.

In short, Kirk believed that one’s race shouldn’t count for anything, but instead, what really matters is one’s character and actions. For an excellent five-minute summary of what this means, see the following video:

HOW ACADEMIA GET IT WRONG WHEN THEY REJECT THE TRUTH OF GOD’S WORD

The article in The Australian this weekend by Timothy J. Lynch, professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne, “The Assassin’s bullet shows why the left gets history all wrong” shows how academia and a society, that has rejected God as Creator, and His sovereignty over His Cosmos, will view events such as the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. He provides an analogy of the similarities of the assassination attempts on Trump and Hitler, to underscore not how similar Trump is to Hitler, but rather, how chance and luck – good and bad – often decide history.

Lynch’s assessment of where academia and society are at is strangely accurate: “We have built a culture on a misplaced sense of mastery, that we can control the weather, that gender is fluid, and that grand theories are better than simple explanations for the death of kings and survival of presidential candidates.

He says, “I’ve spent a career in the social sciences. We tend to favour big causes of things. The economic determinism of Karl Marx was an inescapable part of the humanities for 150 years. Today, class-based analysis has been eclipsed by research programs setting out to show the explanatory power of race and/or gender. Entire university careers can be spun out sifting data to fit a chosen structural theory. Critical race theory is in vogue, especially in the US.

Its proponents claim that all issues, from the everyday interactions of men and women to global inequalities, can (and must) be tied to the racism of white people. In the Anglophobe West, you would be hard-pressed to find a college campus or government department that does not pay some sort of homage to this theory. It is only a theory, after all.

Many disciplines do something similar with patriarchy. It has become a meta-cause of various social injustices. Patriarchy must be smashed. Ditto “toxic masculinity”. Again, a big cause can and must be moulded to fit the effect requiring one. Every modern social science has its bogeyperson – the big structural nemesis demanding defeat. 

However, Trump’s narrow escape has no significant structural explanation. He was plain lucky. He moved his head, just as Hitler stood at the strongest part of the table, at just the right moment. 

Academics hate this stuff. We are uneasy with the unexpected, the contingent, and the accidental.

We dismiss it as too epiphenomenal – as too unrelated to the big structural pressures we need to see manifest. To have world history turn on the turning of Trump’s head is impossible to model, measure, and predict.

We are still too close to know how the events in Pennsylvania will be remembered. But already, like those in Dallas on November 22, 1963, large causes, even conspiracies, are being found for what was simply one insignificant young man choosing to kill his significant peer.

The real agents of history turn out to be men such as John Wilkes Booth (who killed President Abraham Lincoln), Gavrilo Princip (who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand), and Lee Harvey Oswald (who killed President John F. Kennedy).

The structure within which each man acted is a historical curiosity, incidental or irrelevant. Their skill, and certainly their luck, changed history. So why, in our explanations of events, do we grasp for structure over agency?

One important reason, I think, is ideological: agency as an explanation makes people accountable for their actions. Oppressed people cannot be responsible for, much less accountable, for their oppression. Intersectionality, the faux science of progressive academia, fits everyone onto an oppressor v oppressed scale.

This leads to a contemporary discourse where the individual is exculpated from the consequences of his poor decisions. George Floyd, for example, did not make dumb life choices leading to him to Minneapolis that 2020 day. His killing could not simply be a chance encounter with a bad cop. Rather, his fate was explicable wholly in terms of the racism of the city’s police, itself part of the “white supremacy” and “structural racism” of the wider system. For the left, his agency was irrelevant; he had none.

A second related reason is the need to condemn a “great man” theory, that the history of the world is but the biography of great men. The new left recoils at the notion that great white men are the engines of history – what about all the forgotten women and people of colour? – while claiming these individuals are the progenitors of contemporary injustice.

The irony is the left’s implicit faith in the diagnosis of history as an inescapable structural force by one of history’s greatest men: a 19th-century Jewish economic theorist called Marx. 

A third reason we prefer structure to agency is psychological. It is much more reassuring to blame society for what ails us than to admit that miscalculation and bad luck account for our lot. The popularity of psychology as an academic discipline, especially among young women, speaks to a deep-seated need for answers that religious faith used to provide. Instead of individual repentance for sin as a guarantor of salvation, we now encourage groups to find blame in structures they cannot control but must work to change.

Life and death do not work this way. I’d wager your greatest love and most profound tragedy will have more to do with chance and fate (the goddess worshipped by Romans as Fortuna) than with any systemic, structural, or social force.”

Lynch mentions that the once-held religious faith provided the answers to the big questions and what is required for salvation. But a world that has rejected God’s history of the world given to us by God in His Word, the Bible, is now facing the wrath of God. Fulfilled prophecy proves God’s Word provides the true history of the world. We should therefore believe the future end times prophecies of God’s coming Trumpet (Revelation 8;6-) and Bowl (Revelation 16:1-) judgements.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY – MORE HARM THAN GOOD

Racism, discrimination, and prejudice are a sin issue, it’s not a skin issue. Dividing people up into categories based on how they look and then making them feel bad about themselves or what they perceive has been directed toward them will never truly solve the issue. It’s only a biblical worldview and the true history of the human race and the gospel that give us the answers we need!

You see, from a biblical worldview we understand every person is descended from Adam and Eve and therefore has the same ultimate problem—we’re sinners! Our Spirit was designed to be the lamp of the Lord which requires oil (Holy Spirit) to function as God intended. Adam and Eve lost the Holy Spirit when they disobeyed God and likewise all their descendants. Without the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to live a holy life pleasing to God.

The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.Proverbs 20:27

All the societal evils in this world exist because of sin, not because of diversity in skin shades! And the answer for everyone is the same: salvation through Jesus Christ. When we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, God forgives our sins and sends the Holy Spirit to indwell our spirit to enable us to live a holy life in relationship once again with our Heavenly Father. We are born again by the Holy Spirit.

If we want to address the issue of racism, we must start by understanding the biblical truth that we’re all one race, made in God’s image, but we’re also all sinners who desperately need our Saviour, Jesus Christ!

Oh, and if your church or group would like training on this topic from a biblical worldview, check out the small-group curriculum One Race, One Blood: A Biblical Answer to Racism available from Answers in Genesis. This curriculum starts with God’s Word and is a powerful tool for dealing with this issue.

SOCIETY DIVIDED: PRIVILEGED V. VICTIMS

What they are promoting in our universities and colleges: Critical Theory insists that societies are oppressed by a hegemony of powerful ruling interests. People can be divided between those who are complicit with the hegemony and those who resist it. God does not exist. He is not a consideration. Evolution and billions of years did away with God and His Word. Take away the Creator God who made man in His image. the origin of death – man’s sin of rebellion, then who needs a Saviour? Who needs Jesus?

Humanity is viewed as divided between powerful privileged groups and powerless victim groups (and their declared allies).

Resource equity’ is the phrase used to demand equal outcomes between groups. In terms of knowledge, only those who have lived experience of suffering oppression can claim true knowledge of that oppression. In academic circles, this is referred to as ‘standpoint theory’. Different people have access to different truths. Those deemed to have multiple layers of privilege may be stripped of any right to comment on the position of those with less privilege. They are not allowed to question their claims.

They may be banned from speaking in public (‘Noplatforming’ is barring someone from speaking because they do not agree with certain views). People without privilege may need to be protected from hearing any opinions which damage them. The only option for those with privilege is to declare themselves to be allies of those without privilege (i.e. accept their accounts of ‘truth’). Proponents of critical theory know that their claims can’t be exposed to external critique. They have the ‘hidden knowledge’ of lived experience.

MULTIPLE TRUTHS

In 2017, Evergreen College in Washington State in the USA hit international headlines. The socially progressive president had been encouraging students to oppose any perceived discrimination, and he had an informal system of labelling faculty as either allies or enemies.

One of the teaching staff, Professor Bret Weinstein, asserted in an email: On a college campus, one’s right to speak — or to be — must never be based on skin color. But Weinstein was told by colleagues that ‘there are multiple versions of “truth” that exist at once’. And he was warned to accept the experience of minority students without question: If our students are telling us … that they are experiencing a hostile environment, we must take our students at their word. On one level, there’s still the belief that there’s no universal truth. But some activists imply that those without privilege have access to a truth that the privileged can never enjoy. The only hope for the privileged is to sign up as allies of those without privilege.

A free society should ensure equal opportunities. All human beings made in God’s image should have the opportunity to flourish. But human beings are different. There will always be a wide variety of abilities, competence, energy, motivation, and integrity. Enforcing equal outcomes demands social engineering on a vast scale. It assumes state intervention in every aspect of life. It signals the end of a free society.

God’s Word tells us that this would be the state of the world prior to Jesus’ second coming to restore righteousness. We are yet to see it, but we are heading for a one-world government, the Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast.

INJUSTICE MULTIPLIED

Critical Legal Theory: Use the Law to Right Past Wrongs: Ideas like ‘equality before the law’ and ‘justice is blind’ were part of the ‘hegemony’ of power by which the privileged kept victims oppressed.

Critical Legal Theory: New Injustices Perpetrated If someone is part of a victim class, their crime may be excused if it is thought to result from their disadvantage. We are no longer equal before the law.

‘Hate’ legislation means that if an alleged victim (or someone else) ‘perceives’ that hate has motivated a crime, then the sentence can be heavier. The law is a means by which to advance the ‘progressive’ agenda (e.g. abortion rights, same-sex marriage, or self-declaration of gender). Justice is no longer blind. Judges take on too much power when they create laws rather than applying laws.

A BREAKDOWN IN THE LOGIC OF CIVILISATION

Critical theory aims to dissolve the universe of meaning by denying the existence of objective universal truth.

If we can’t appeal to reason and logic there can be no reasoned debate. On what shared basis can civilisation continue? Such a society is vulnerable to tyranny. The subjective judgements of the loudest voices win. Those who resort to violence and intimidation are given a free pass. The great political philosopher Edmund Burke observed: Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. Burke was writing in the context of the French Revolution. The dream of equality led straight to the ‘reign of terror’. Once universal truth has been denied, discrete groups claim their own ‘truth’ (aka experience of oppression) which others cannot comprehend. Reasoned debate is not an option. Violence is the only possible means to the end of perfect equality. That threatens the basic logic of civilisation.

Fortunately, Christians can affirm with confidence that there is such a thing as objective universal truth. And we are able to communicate with others, whatever their group identity because all human beings have been given the priceless gift of reason by their Creator.

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.Matthew 24:12-14

WHY WE ARE SEEING BUSINESSES ADOPT CRT AND WOKE IDEOLOGY

What is Critical Race Theory (CRT)?

In a nutshell, CRT stigmatizes all whites (including “woke” ones) as racist oppressors while equally stereotyping all blacks as helpless victims who need an immensely powerful state to “liberate” them. This is not merely a “theory”. It is a political project which relies on inculcating feelings of guilt so as to shame whites into silence while perpetuating a sense of victimhood among blacks. CRT is thus fundamentally at odds with traditional Christian values – among them equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, and viewing people as individuals made in the image of God rather than as members of groups. CRT is indeed itself a racist ideology.

Someone who is woke is constantly inspecting every institution in society, looking for the presence of racism, sexism, and other forms of pervasive prejudice. What separates someone who is woke from someone who is merely progressive is not only this vigilance and awareness but a fervent belief that everyone must be enlisted into their social causes at all times and that the end justifies the means when battling what they see as injustice.

Unlike traditional liberals, woke Americans place very little stake in value-neutral norms like freedom of speech and non-discrimination.

A number of influential CEOs in the USA have embraced ‘woke’  corporate policies in recent years. While some may have thought this to be harmless – and perhaps good for business – it has seemingly come with a price, as the backlash has come from woke ads. CEOs can never buy enough absolution from the left as long as they believe in profit. Alienating the right leaves them friendless. Biz News warned CEOs that this would happen when they went for woke, and now it has.

What Wall Street did not mention is that the funding of big business is controlled by people such as Larry Fink (Blackrock) and Michael Bloomberg and they have the World Economic Forum (WEF) agenda of “The Great Reset” – A world socialist agenda controlled by the elite, “front and centre” of all they do.

What are ESG factors and Stakeholders, not Shareholders?

In his 2022 annual CEO letter, Fink said the nature of companies is changing, they now need to consider stakeholders, not shareholders. Stakeholders (employees as well as shareholders) need to know where the company stands on the societal issues intrinsic to their companies’ long-term success”. Companies will be judged by how they are addressing ESG factors. ESG is a framework that helps stakeholders understand how an organization is managing risks and opportunities related to Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESG factors). ESG takes the holistic view that sustainability extends way beyond just environmental issues.

It is obvious that unless Boards and CEOs take on these new “Stakeholder and ESG” values, funding will not be forthcoming.

Some have criticized stakeholder capitalism and ESG as “woke” politics, a threat to shareholder interests, and a distraction for boards and management. Others have questioned whether stakeholder capitalism and ESG can straddle “doing good” and “doing well.” Uncertainty also abounds as to what ESG truly means.

But God reveals what is truly going on here. It is a move by the WEF elite to have companies adopt their godless agenda which will lead to a one-world government exactly as the Bible prophesies will happen prior to Jesus soon coming to earth. First, to rescue the Saints, second, to pour out His wrath on an unrepentant world, and third, to establish Jesus’ Millennial Kingdom. Go to http://www.millennialkigdom.net for more information on what God has planned next for His world.

ABANDONMENT OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH AND COMMON SENSE

Why are people so hostile to the idea of objective truth? They are deeply hostile to the thought of anything that in any sense stands in judgement over them. The idea toward which they are most hostile is, of course, the idea of there being a God. But they are almost as hostile to the idea of there being an objective universe that doesn’t care what they think and could make their most cherished beliefs false.

The abandonment of common sense is exactly because of our deep-seated desire to not have anything, not even an impersonal universe, be in the position of judging us, our actions, or our beliefs. And so to avoid this, we reject common sense in favor of the fancy of theory (e.g. Evolution and random chance as a means of creating this universe of order and complexity beyond our understanding), yet in doing so we confirm not theory, but Biblical revelation itself, particularly “end times” prophecies of what the world will be like prior to Jesus second coming.

 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals, or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, and malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.Romans 1:18-32 (RSV)

I have included this video but would caution you that it is almost 2 hours long and the content is deep and complex. Jordan is seeking the truth but as yet I doubt He has committed his life to our Lord Jesus Christ. I say that because he makes no mention of the Holy Spirit, nor does Peter Kreeft for that matter. Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to indwell our spirit so that we can live a Christian life. The Holy Spirit is our counsellor, comforter, and teacher. He produces the fruit of the Spirit (9) in our lives and provides gifts of the Spirit for ministry (9). Once we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, He provides the means for us to be Christian by providing the third person of the Trinity to empower us.

Dr. Peter Kreeft and Dr. Jordan B Peterson discuss spiritual endeavor, delving deep into where we came from as a religious species, where we are now in the age of technology, and how we combat hedonism with personal sacrifice. Dr. Kreeft is a professor in the field of Philosophy and teaches at Boston College and King’s College in New York. When Dr. Kreeft was a student, he was asked to examine Catholicism which led to his conversion. He’s written more than eighty books on the subject, such as “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” and “Socrates Meets Jesus.” He gives us many gems of wisdom.

MIKE PENCE ON THE WOKE LEFT

Former Vice President Mark Pence spoke at a Young America’s Foundation event at the University of Virginia. He revealed what is happening in the USA under Biden’s Democrat government. Whether in the form of Critical Race Theory, Marxist propaganda, or radical gender theory, the Left has launched a full-fledged assault on the USA society, depriving the people of freedom, prosperity, and security, he said.

Pence is concerned that this may be the last generation that has a chance to restore Godly values. Sadly, God has shown us in His Word that lawlessness will increase in the last days, moreover, the Antichrist will have his prophesied time ruling the nations. The Rapture of the Saints and the wrath of God poured out on the unrepentant are then next on God’s end-times timetable.

Mike Pence’s efforts are commendable but his comment that the best days for America are yet to come is wrong and will not help prepare Christians for the coming tribulation.

RACIAL RECONCILIATION THROUGH FORGIVENESS IS NOT ON OFFER OUTSIDE OF THE GOSPEL

In relation to the question of race, we need to consider the secular mindset of today’s racial illuminati. They employ the categories of guilt and innocence but apart from a conviction that God has dealt with universal guilt by the sacrifice of his innocent Son. Therefore, whites are guilty because they are white; blacks innocent because they are black.

Redemption and reconciliation through forgiveness is not on offer, only perpetual repentance on the part of one group.

For most of the last two thousand years Christians have believed that God deals with nations as nations and enters into closer relations with societies that claim him as Lord. This belief in the national covenant, only recently out of fashion, is where Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. turned when faced with such questions in their own time.

This anthology, Race and Covenant explores the theme of national covenant in scripture, history, and contemporary American society as well as the theology and practices of covenant communities. Its authors suggest new strategies for finding racial reconciliation in this troubled time.

Featuring contributions from W.B. Allen, Joshua Berman, Timothy George, Derryck Green, Alveda C. King, Glenn C. Loury, Gerald R. McDermott, Joshua Mitchell, Evan Musgraves, Osvaldo Padilla, James M. Patterson, Jacqueline C. Rivers, R. Mitchell Rocklin, Robert Smith, Jr., Carol M. Swain, Mark Tooley, and Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

This stirring passage from Derryck Green’s contribution itself commends the book:

Blacks have been systematically targeted, attacked, hurt, and damaged. Slavery and segregation, while not unique to America, were evil. They were sins against the national covenant, and these sins have been massive impediments to the peace and unity which most blacks and whites seek. The residual of white racial chauvinism, though legally outlawed, continues to guide far too many hearts and minds. Some black anger and resentment are therefore understandable; some are not. But it doesn’t matter. Jesus was very clear that the obligation of his followers is to upend the normal cycle of reciprocating anger, antipathy, and hostility. As his disciples, black folks in the churches must initiate reconciliation, and that begins with forgiveness.

Extracted from article Race, Covenant, and Forgiveness by James F Keating in The Catholic Thing, Saturday July 10th, 2021

SO MUCH FOR CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Ty Smith, a parent who hosts a weekend radio show in central Illinois, blasted Critical Race Theory (CRT) in a blistering short speech before a crowded district school board meeting, the latest in a growing chorus of frustrated parents who view CRT as an ideology that flies directly in the face of the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King

Credit: screenshot/Cities929.com

Smith disputed some of the central tenants of CRT. “You’re going to deliberately teach kids, ‘this white kid right here got it better than you because he’s white’? You’re going to purposely tell a white kid that black people are all down and oppressed? How do I have two medical degrees if I’m sitting here oppressed?” he said to loud cheers from the crowded meeting.

“No mom, no dad in the house. Worked my way through college, sat there and hustled my butt off to get through college. You gonna tell me somebody that looked like y’all white folks kept me from doing that? Are you serious? Not one white person ever came to me and said ‘well, son, you know you’ll never be able to get anywhere because the black people’”, an incredulous Smith argued.

He went on to explain that currently, black Americans are being told they won’t be able to make it because ‘the white man is going to keep you down’ but his own story proves that narrative is false. “Well how did I get where I am right now if some white man kept me down? How am I now directing over folks that look just like you guys in this room right now. How? What kept me down? What oppressed me? I worked myself off the streets to where I am right now and you’re going to sit here and tell me this lie of Critical Race Theory? That this is the reason black folks can’t get ahead, because of white folks? Are you kidding me? I can’t believe we’re even talking about this.”

Smith closed out his impassioned comments with remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King, saying it’s the “complete reverse” of MLK’s message of judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

“When February comes around, don’t talk about Martin Luther King. Don’t talk about Black History Month if you’re pretty much going to pee on his grave with this nonsense.”

GOD CREATED INDIVIDUALS NOT SOCIETIES

Prior to the advent of Christianity individuals belonged to the city, body and soul. If an individual had any value at all it was only by reference to some organised collective. Christianity changed all of that, the proclamation by the apostles that God had become man obliterated this view that individuals had no value that had predominated in the ancient world.

If Jesus is a person as the apostolic and patristic fathers of the early church proclaimed and He died and was raised as a representative of the entire human race then we are infinitely more valuable than society and the state makes of us. Suddenly, our identity is in view, we were created by our Heavenly Father in His image.. Our separation from Him was of our own making i.e. our rejection of His lordship over our lives.

How liberating is the following verse.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28

This concept of the value of the individual is being attacked as society increasingly rejects God and His followers. People are increasingly identifying themselves and others in terms of the groups they belong to. The God group is of course being increasingly marginalised. It is from the group they obtain their solidity and source of meaning. Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter are good examples of this onslaught. The unique person made in God’s image that is underneath these labels, the person Jesus died on The Cross to redeem is lost. Jesus said that in the last days lawlessness will abound and that Christians will be persecuted. Sadly, many will fall away but the one who endures will be saved.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another… And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.Matthew 24:9-10, 12-13

Start living your lives now with an eternal perspective. Trust God and His promises and He will use you for His purposes in these last days. The Holy Spirit will direct your steps and you will move in power with the gifts of the Spirit evident. You will truly be a light in a dark place. Many will be saved through your witness and acts of kindness.

Prophesied end times signs